Why

I overheard a couple talking this morning about yet another school shooting. About the “senselessness” of it all, repeating again and again how they “didn’t understand” what was happening in our society.

I don’t KNOW that I understand, but I think I might know some part of it.

We are raising a generation (or second, or third) that has no “hope of heaven”, little sense of destiny, and no personal calling.

A generation with no fathers (or too many fathers) who sees morality, and absolutes, and religion given a condescending pat on the head (at best) while “science” teaches them that they are little more than electrical pain collecting mechanisms grinding their way towards oblivion…and we wonder why no one “values human life” anymore?

Next we give them shallow, meaningless idols to worship…millionaire rock-stars, overpaid (and over-drugged, and over-sexed) sports stars, “famous” actors and performers…with talents and abilities (regardless of your personal preference) that 99.999 of them do not posses and have no hope that they will ever attain.

We take them to a high place and offer them the world, and they’re halfway to the ground before they realize they’ve been duped.

Instead of pointing them at true heroes, those who protect, and serve, and teach, and heal, and love…we give them Kardasians, and Biebers, and Cyrus’s, and Armstrongs, and Paternos…

…and when they become disillusioned with those mud idols, or despair in the likelihood of thier own 70ish years of comparable anonymity, mediocrity, and worthlessness, followed by the great void; when we tell them one thing with our lips-service about “living a good life”, and another thing at the box-offices, and bookstores, and concert halls, and arenas with our wallets and our time, might not some of them replace the impossible dream of being a “hero” for at least the fleeting fame and significance of being the anti-hero?

What have they got to lose, when they have no hope?

And we’ve certainly made THAT a quick and easy trip to fame. Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Deer Creek Middle School, Thurston High School, Chardon High School, Sandy Hook, Sparks Middle School, Isla Vista… Seattle Pacific University. This is a tiny fraction of school shootings that covered the front pages of newspapers, filled the radio airwaves, and were bandied about ad naseum on “cable news TV”…and, let’s be honest, not because of anything so noble as “the people’s right to know” but because sensationalism = ratings = profits. Hollywood made movies (albeit not good ones.) Presidents learned their names. There’s no such thing as bad press, right?

Sociopaths or not, kids aren’t stupid…they can do the math. Grab a gun and CNN will make you famous. (Insert the media outlet of your choice, they’re all pimps of the same pain and suffering.)

Meaningless life, followed by nothing, or “going down in a blaze of glory” (another theme of countless rock stars and box office hits)…how can we NOT understand?